Posts tagged: Field Guide to Herbs & Spices

The multi-sensory program is part of the Les Dames d’Escoffier Washington, DC Chapter’s 7th Bi-Annual Symposium called Celebrating FOOD! Cooking Careers s Communications, the Seventh Salute to Women in Gastronomy.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter a large (12-cup) Bundt pan. Arrange whole rose geranium leaves in the bottom of prepared pan sticking them on with a dab of soft butter. Dust the pan with flour, shaking out excess. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda and reserve. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then add vanilla, the grated zest, and minced rose geranium leaves. Alternating and beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, add the flour mixture and buttermilk to the batter. Carefully pour batter into the pan so as not to disturb the leaves and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until just set in the middle. Cool before removing from pan and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Broiled Summer Fruit with Honey Butter

Ingredients:

Combine in food processor and process till smooth and creamy and reserve. (To prepare by hand, soften butter, then beat together with remaining ingredients.)

Directions:

Prepare a colorful assortment of summer fruit including quartered figs, sliced peaches, plums, and/or apricots, pitted and halved cherries, diced mango and/or red papaya, sliced red bananas, halved strawberries, and whole raspberries, blackberries, and/or blueberries. Preheat the broiler. Spread fruit out in a metal baking pan. Spoon bits of the butter all over the top, using about half the butter. (Refrigerate the remainder for use another time.) Broil the fruit on high for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling and browned. Serve with ice cream or a wedge of the Rose Geranium Pound Cake. (Butter may be frozen for later use.)

Meet Aliza Green, bring her your culinary questions, and get personally signed copies of her books including Starting with Ingredients: Baking and her Foodie’s Field Guides at Copperfield’s Books, just down the street from Relish Culinary School in Healdsburg. The book makes a perfect holiday gift for that curious baker while her Field Guides to Produce, Meat, Herbs & Spices, and Seafood are considered lifesavers by culinary students, food writers, chefs, and home cooks. For more information…

Herbs and spices make everything taste better—but can you tell your thyme from your sage? Do you know the difference between dill and rosemary? Where can you find hyssop or rose geranium? Field Guide to Herbs & Spices is here to help. With color photographs of more than 200 different international seasonings, you’ll soon be flavoring your dishes like a pro. Award-winning chef Aliza Green shows the basic history of these spices (saffron used to be worth more than gold!), its season (if applicable), names in other languages, a recipe featuring the seasoning, and much more. This handy field guide will make all of your meals complete!